Systemic Racism Isn't Real - Right?

In February 2020, I wrote a piece focused on peonage during Black History Month. On February 15, I posted it on Facebook, and it had more than ten thousand shares in a matter of weeks.

Over the months, I started seeing the words I wrote in this post being reposted with a different picture and under another author. (In June 2020, I edited it by adding my name and reposted it.)

I contacted several people and organizations that had copied, pasted, and inserted their names as the writer and asked them to acknowledge that they had not written the piece. After a while, I stopped contacting folks because it became exhausting. I realized that it was more important for people to share this information than fight to get credit for writing it because when people become aware of such injustices, it often leads to conversations that transform how people think, live, and treat others.

My original post was shared more than 171,000 times, and others who copied and pasted it have shared their versions more than 140,00 times.

People shared the post hundreds of thousands of times, and because I did not cite my sources, an individual requested USA Today to fact-check it - This is what they determined - USA Today Article.

The following is an updated version of the original piece - the 2021 edited version.

In 1866, one year after the 13 Amendment was ratified and enslaved people were set free, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to legally arrest formerly enslaved people and either use them to work on state-sanctioned projects or lease them to farmers and other business owners.

THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENED

The 13th Amendment declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Did you catch that? It says, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude could occur except as a punishment for a crime."

Most white southern farmers and other business owners hated the 13th Amendment because it took away slave labor. State legislators used this phrase in the 13th Amendment to create laws called Black Codes, where Blacks could be arrested for petty crimes and legally forced to work for whomever the state determined. This new form of involuntary servitude (slavery) is called peonage: a convict labor system.

Being able to capture Blacks and lease them to White business owners legally made arresting Blacks very lucrative. Hundreds of White men became "officers" in these states as police officers. Their primary responsibility was to search out and stop Blacks. Businesses and government officials leased men, women, and children to plantations and other companies where they performed the same or similar duties - harvesting cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane, working in coal mines or for railroad companies, etc. The owners of these businesses would pay the state a fee for every prisoner that worked for them.

To appease former slave-holders, the federal government looked the other way when southern states established Black Codes and forced Blacks into peonage.

Some estimate that more than 800,000 Blacks were part of the system of peonage after slavery ended. Peonage didn't end until after World War II ended in 1945.

Not having a job was one of the offenses formerly enslaved people were arrested for. Remember, Blacks had recently been freed from slavery, most didn't own businesses or farms, and white people didn't want to hire them, so most Blacks didn't have jobs.

HERE ARE MORE EXAMPLES OF BLACK CODES

In Louisiana, it was illegal for a Black man to preach to Black congregations without special permission in writing from the president of the police. If caught, he could be arrested and fined. If he could not pay the fines, which were usually high, he would be forced to go to jail or prison, where he would work until his debt was paid off.

This next Black Code will make you cringe.

In South Carolina, if the parent of a Black child was considered vagrant, the judicial system allowed the police and other government agencies to apprentice the child to an employer. Males were held captive until age 21 and females until 18. Their owner had the legal right to punish the child for disobedience and recapture them if they ran away. (This is slavery by a different name.)

Slavery was made legal by the U.S. Government. Segregation, Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and peonage were all made legal by state legislators and upheld by the criminal justice system. These are prime examples of systemic racism and part of the history of America that most of us never learned about.

My Challenge to You

Develop a more robust understanding of American history, become more aware of historical injustices, and engage in meaningful conversations about what you learn. This approach will help us become less apathetic and more empathetic toward others. It can also transform how we think, live, and treat others.

There's so much to learn - Do your own research about Black Codes and peonage, and watch 13th, a documentary about the 13th Amendment.